Identification

Title

Revisiting the linkages between the variability of atmospheric circulations and Arctic melt-season sea ice cover at multiple time scales

Abstract

The sharp decline of Arctic sea ice in recent decades has captured the attention of the climate science community. A majority of climate analyses performed to date have used monthly or seasonal data. Here, however, we analyze daily sea ice data for 1979-2016 using the self-organizing map (SOM) method to further examine and quantify the contributions of atmospheric circulation changes to the melt-season Arctic sea ice variability. Our results reveal two main variability modes: the Pacific sector mode and the Barents and Kara Seas mode, which together explain about two-thirds of the melt-season Arctic sea ice variability and more than 40% of its trend for the study period. The change in the frequencies of the two modes appears to be associated with the phase shift of the Pacific decadal oscillation (PDO) and the Atlantic multidecadal oscillation (AMO). The PDO and AMO trigger anomalous atmospheric circulations, in particular, the Greenland high and the North Atlantic Oscillation and anomalous warm and cold air advections into the Arctic Ocean. The changes in surface air temperature, lower-atmosphere moisture, and downwelling longwave radiation associated with the advection are consistent with the melt-season sea ice anomalies observed in various regions of the Arctic Ocean. These results help better understand the predictability of Arctic sea ice on multiple (synoptic, intraseasonal, and interannual) time scales.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d76976kv

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2019-03-01T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact